The Vuelta’s sole individual time trial brought a battle of the ages. A battle between three Spanish cycling heroes – although two of the three are Colombian – who soar high in the mountains and a Slovenian time trial overlord who seeks to reign supreme in Spain’s singular grand tour.

At the end of this 36.2 kilometer course that ended in Pau, it was the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) who scorched the competition – Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana), Movistar duo Nairo Quintana, and Alejandro Valverde – to win the stage as well as catapult into the overall lead with a healthy margin.

Rider of the Race

From start to finish, it was clear that Primoz Roglic was in the driver’s seat of today’s stage. Straight from the gun, he put himself into his ever familiar aerodynamic time trial position that was surely to outmatch that of his competitors. The former ski jumper could not place a pedal stroke wrong as he blazed along the bumpy profile. Catching and passing Lopez,his unfortunate two-minute man and leaving a wake of tears for his challengers to wipe away at each time checkpoint. Simply put, he out rode everyone else, whether it be CCC’s  Patrick Bevin  (2nd place on the stage at 25 seconds) or Quintana (27th place at 3 minutes, 6 seconds). For his dominating performance over all others, Roglic is my rider of the race.

Every time trial you try to do as fast possible, it was the same issue today. I’m happy with the performance for sure. I just tried to go all the time as fast as possible and yeah, it was enough at the end.

Teams Need Fashion Consultants

It seems that not a season, or heck even a grand tour, goes by where fans are not subjected to eye burning images of riders in poorly thought out kit designs, particularly when it comes to a jersey classification. Whether you cast your mind back to Pierre Rolland’s polka dot bibs, Quintana’s pink shoe covers, or any of the other kit atrocities the issue remains the same. Let’s take a gander at today’s examples.

Not to fear, however, for I have a solution to this problem! Cycling teams ought to start hiring fashion consultants for these races. Perhaps the UCI can hire a consultant on retainer for the classification leaders. Maybe there is a fashion consultant who enjoys cycling and would gladly volunteer to save all our eyes, I’m not sure. The one thing that I am sure of is my eyesight is getting worse as I age, and I’m sure that is a result of viewing images similar to those above for the past eight years.

Stage results

1 Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) 47:05

2 Patrick Bevin (CCC) +0:25

3 Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quickstep) +0:27

4 Lawson Craddock (EF Education First) +0:48

5 Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) +1:02

GC standings

1 Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) 36:05:09

2 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +1:52

3 Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) +2:11

4 Nairo Quintana (Movistar) +3:00

5 Tadej Pogacar (UAE) +3:05

6 Carl Frederik Hagen (Lotto Soudal) +4:59

7 Rafal Majka (Bora-Hansgrohe) +5:42

8 Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) +5:49

9 Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida) +6:07

10 Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) +6:25

All the jerseys

Leader’s jersey: Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma)

Points jersey: Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma)

Climber’s jersey: Angel Madrazo (Burgos-BH)

Young Rider’s jersey: Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana)

The official Vuelta website is here; for full race review, go to cyclingnews.

Header Image:  © Tim de Waele/Getty Images